Christians
have made several attempts to compromise with evolutionism which
they confuse with real science. Always the compromise is based upon
trying to reconcile the “millions of years” claimed
(of necessity) by evolutionists for the age of the earth.

Personal
experiences have proven to me that evolutionists have only contempt
for those who try to attach God onto evolution. Although dogmatic
Darwinists mock Young Earth Creationists for what we believe, evolutionists
respect our logic and consistency because we creationists read the
Bible straight forwardly.

As
a new Christian I assumed God had used evolution. I was unaware
of the term, but that belief is Theistic Evolutionism. As soon as
I heard that evolution was not biblical it was easy for me to go
to the Gap Theory and quickly (as soon as I heard of it) embrace Young (less than 10 thousand
years) Earth Creationism.

The
scope of this article is not to explain why various Old Earth positions
are wrong and harmful to the proclaiming the Gospel. Those subjects
are handled expertly and extensively on any Young Earth Creation
website. Rather, the focus of this article will be on a slick doctrine
that is more deceptive than other compromises. I am referring to
the Progressive Creation expounded by Dr. Hugh Ross and the Reasons
to Believe organization. Specifically, I will focus on what
Ross and Reasons to Believe teach about insects.

Ross
accepts the millions of years and evolutionary scenario for the
appearance of insects. Except for his denial of any evolution and
his Christian and Bible talk, all Ross has to say about insects
is straight from the mouths of true believers in evolutionism. Ross
even provides links to secular evolution promoting websites such
as The Virtual Fossil Museum (http://www.fossilmuseum.net/)
where this banner runs across the top of the homepage: “Fossils
across geological time presented in multiple contexts of geological
history, the tree of life, paleobiology, and evolution.” Easily
found within the same website is, “‘Nothing in biology
makes sense except in the light of evolution’. Theodosius
Dobzhansky (geneticist) The often seen quote above by famous geneticist
Dobzhansky elegantly captures the paramount importance of evolution.
Stated differently, evolution is the single organizing principle
of all the biological sciences.”

Ross believes God created the insects in increments over the millions
of years needed by evolutionists to fit their interpretation of
the geological strata. According to Ross, God created things (plants,
fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, non human hominids) the insects,
needed to interact with each progressive creation, were created
as needed. Then groups of insects were replaced as these progressive
creations went extinct. were destroyed in some catastrophe

A
Ross disciple, Greg Moore, unwittingly equates evolution to science
by writing, “The scientific view is based upon the fossil
evidence.” Moore, in attempting to rebut Answers in Genesis’
Greg Mortenson, says science places the first insects “in
the Devonian Period, about 400 million years ago.” That is
when Hugh Ross believes God performed the first in a series of progressive
creations. (Moore, Greg. “Does the Old-Earth View Contradict
Genesis 1?” http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/other_papers/greg_moore_does_old_
earth_creationism_contradict_
genesis_1.shtml)

An example of the confusing statements issued by the Ross group
is a commentary on a news item. “Discovery of the first fossilized
leaf insect from early Eocene formations in Germany provides support
for RTB’s creation model. Named Eophyllium messelensis, the
specimen dates to 47 million years in age but displays remarkably
modern features. This find indicates that leaf insects have not
undergone any appreciable evolutionary change for the last 47 million
years. The first appearance of leaf insects with modern features
followed by a period of developmental stasis is a pattern that comports
well with the notion that a Creator is responsible for life’s
history.” (http://www.reasons.org/resources/tnrtb/200702.shtml)
This commentary accepts the evolution dating and mixes in God along
with an almost unnoticed reference to the Progressive Creationism
dogma.

I sent snail mail to Dr. Ross asking if the first flying insects
were created with wings like they have today. I wanted to know his
thoughts about the hive making ability of bees. I also asked him
if the first ants were able to produce sterile workers immediately.
He did not reply. I used the Reasons website contact form
to post a query and received a response from Dr. Eugene S. Lopata
(Physical Chemistry)

Dr.
Lopata gave his interpretation of the creation of insects based
upon the writings of Dr. Ross. Lopata wrote, “The creation
days described in Genesis 1 are long periods of time (on the order
of millions of years—geological ages)…The fossil record
consistently reveals the geological sudden appearance of new forms
of life; once that life appears, it remains for a long time relatively
unchanged. This is called stasis in biology.” Dr. Lopated
concluded by saying he has “no basis for judging how rapidly
or over what period of time God actually introduced insect species
on the earth, i. e. whether they were created very suddenly or over
thousands or tens of thousands of years.”

Ross
wrote (in “Genesis One, Dinosaurs and Cavemen” (http://reasons.org/kidsspace/dinocave.shtml?main
No longer available) a scenario of the creation (beginning “billions
of years ago”) that fits an evolutionary description perfectly,
except Ross has God creating new life forms periodically over billions
of years..

In
a Radio Spot “Does Genesis place insects as being created
last?” (Copied in August, 1999. No citation available) Ross
argued that the “creeping creatures” of Genesis 1:25
were not insects. He said that if insects were created last “the
Genesis record of creation is out of synch with the scientifically
established facts.” He should have said, evolutionary scenario.

In
his book Creation and Time (pg. 63) Ross argues that there
was death before the fall of Adam and Eve. He amazingly says that
“plants suffer when they are eaten.” He uses insects
to support the argument because we have “little concern (felt)
over the death of insects”. This is his way of saying that
some death was allowable before the Fall.

Elsewhere Ross wrote, “Less advanced creatures, like cockroaches,
may last as long as 150 million years.”

I
have coined a term to disrobe the Ross view of creation: "TE-PE"
for Theistic Evolution with Punctuated Equilibrium.

Not
only does Hugh Ross misread and twist the plainly written text of
Genesis, but he slides on down the slippery slope by claiming that
nature is the 67th book of the Bible. It is no wonder that, while
researching this article, I found links on the Reasons to Believe
website that took me to the aforementioned evolutionist fossil website,
but another that led me to a skeptic who mocked the Noachian flood
by ignorantly arguing that insects could not have survived the flood
and another one that attempts to explain the Egyptian plagues from
naturalistic means. Ross gives us reasons not to believe.

Hugh
Ross has insidious (and heretical) beliefs and he is flat-out wrong
regarding the origin of insects.